Help. How much power output from 955i alt?

[Sasquatch]

The king tiger had an issue last night.  I am finally riding it with all the mods.  When I got home last night it would barely start.  The battery was drained.  This is a new '01 955i with less than 900 miles on it.  Yes, the battery is original, but it is holding a charge after charging it.



When I am running my Gerbing heated jacket, and heated grips both on high, and in stop and go traffic, it is killing my battery.  It seems the alternator can not keep up.  There should be plenty of juice in the stock alternator for grips and a jacket.



Hooking the multimeter up to the battery, at idle, even with no jacket hooked up, it drops below 12v.  At 3k rpm's it is in the high 13's, maybe barely hitting 14v.  It seems like the charging system should be stronger than that.  The one on my FZR could power a small town.



Anyone know what the total output should be from the alternator?



Jay

[AK Tiger]

Hi Tigerjay - According to the factory service manual, the 955i's alternator is rated at 35 amperes.  It does not state at what rpm the alternator developes those 35 amperes.  If you assume that 14 volts to be the nominal system voltage, that'd equal 490 watts.



AK Tiger

[Sasquatch]

An update.  I charged the battery last night and pulled the charger right before going to bed.  This morning the battery had retained 12.90 volts.  Ok that checked out.



I brought my Gerbing jacket liner over and plugged it in and fired the bike up.



13.8 to 14.1 vdc at idle with grips and jacket on.



(head scratching)



I started pulling and replaceing individual fuses for options and headlights and watching the volt gage.  All looked well.  I could not figure it out.  Even with the fan running, I had a solid 13.4 volts with everything on and running.



Then it happened......  After doing this for about 20 minutes, the voltage started rapidly dropping.....  Yup, the regulator/rectifier got hot enough and failed.  After it was hot, it was not keeping up at idle and barely enough to sustain at higher RPM's.



Little unnerving since the bike has less than 900 miles on it, but it still has alot of warrantee left, so I will get another one for free.



Triumph must be buying thier reg/rects from the Honda CBR parts bins, I do not know how many of those I have replaced over the years as a mechanic..

[Guest]

Could this be why it's only done 900 miles??

[Chris Canning]

Funny thing the CBR/VFR rectifier thing,if it was any other manfacture there'd be a right stink,cuz it's Honda every shrugs their collective shoulders,haveing had to ride behind a VFR in crack of night because his had gone Kaput,i've sampled the problem at first hand.



Chris

[BykBoy]

Similar thing happend to me. The alternator fuese burnt out and my batary ran out of juce just outside the Holand tunnel on I-78 (heated grips and vest pluged in). I ended up pushing the bike 2 miles to the toll booth with an escort from New Jersey's finest. A friend met me there with a replacement fuese.



After I replaced the fuese, the bike ran OK with the check engine light on. The light went out after 80 miles or so and things are back to normal.



I did not use the heated grips since then and the cat has been working fine. I'm a little concerned because I'm going to hook up my PIAA lights soon. I guess I'll have to look into replacing the reg/rec next time I take the big cat into the shop.

[Sasquatch]

Could this be why it's only done 900 miles??

Ha, uh, no.  I bought the bike dealer new last fall with only 10 miles on it.  Left over in the warehouse.

[Sasquatch]

Another update.



I pulled the testing proceedure from Electrex's website and set out to test the reg/rect last night.



It seems that my bike was used as a parts bike either while at the dealer that I bought it from, or while in storage at the importer'w wherehouse.  The connection between the stator and the regulator was MAULED!  It looked like someone had tried to remove it with a hammer and chisel (very dull chisel).  But the regulator side of the connecor was pristine.  This means that this stator came off another bike.  A bike that maybe had the connector get so hot, it made it hard to remove.



The bike is on the trailer (6" of snow on the ground) and I will deliver it back to the dealer today and inform him I want a completely new charging system installed.  I bought a new bike, I want it a new bike!



Jay, one seriously pissed off Sicilian Sasquatch....

[BykBoy]

I bought a new bike, I want it a new bike!

To quote Turkish from Snatch: "You sure got them minirals!".



Make sure you get a good once over the entire bike to see if the dealer snatched any other parts off your cat...



Keep us posted...

[Sasquatch]

I just dropped the bike off at the dealer.  They really are a good shop.  I showed them the connector and they went and grabbed their mechanic.  He explained that there was a recall on the wiring from the stator that he replaced on this bike.  He said that the locking tabs from the factory are so tight that he almost had to destroy the connector to get it off.  He did chuckle and he admitted that he was a little hard on this one.  They did not fight me or treat me with anything but the utmost respect.  They simply said that they would fix it and call me with the results.



I will let the group know what the problem is.